Month: May 2018

Monday Charles and Claudia Coleman are the best of besties. They dress alike, dance alike, and since their names alphabetically come one right after the other on class lists, even always sit together in classes at their Washington D.C. middle school. Monday helps Claudia conceal her dyslexia, while Claudia’s home is a quiet place for Monday to hang out when her own house full of siblings feels too chaotic. They talk about every thing from boys and sex to Go-Go music and dance moves. So when Monday doesn’t show up to the first day of eighth grade, Claudia knows something’s wrong. Monday never misses school. Claudia calls her phone, but it’s disconnected. She drops by Monday’s house, but Monday’s mom just yells at her and slams the door. She tries reporting Monday’s absence to her parents, police and teachers, all to no avail. The only person who seems to know something is April, Monday’s older sister. But she refuses to admit that anything is wrong, saying only that Monday is visiting their aunt or father. Where is Monday? What has happened to her? Why won’t anyone help Claudia find her? As the days and then months pass and Claudia tries desperately get anyone to care about her best friend, she begins to uncover disturbing clues that Monday may have been hiding secrets darker than Claudia can even imagine. This harrowing, ripped-from-the-headlines story was inspired by #missingDCgirls and the media’s apparent lack of concern for black and Latino teenage girls who go missing. Tiffany D. Jackson seamlessly weaves timely themes about the damaging effects of gentrification on traditionally black neighborhoods and the dangers of overlooking the signs of mental illness throughout this ominously enigmatic page turner. Read it, weep, then become inspired to learn more about these critical issues.

Oh my gosh, do I love a good survival story! I mean, real life-and-death kind of stakes where scrappy, puny humans fight against a totally uncaring landscape full of sharp, cold, wet or poisonous obstacles that are either passively or actively trying to kill them. But let’s be clear–I have no desire to start a fire with sticks and moss or skin a squirrel myself. I just want to read about it from the warm coziness of my couch while drinking tea and munching Cheetos. And it’s totally possible I chomped my way through an entire bag of toxic orange goodness while breathlessly turning the pages of Kate Marshall‘s terrifying tale of endurance and retribution.

Sixteen year old Jess Cooper’s single mom is dead–killed in the same car accident that screwed up Jess’s leg and mangled her face. Jess has no choice but to join her absentee dad, a man whose been off the grid for most of his life and all of hers, in the deep Canadian wilderness. She’s determined to take the first plane she can wave down back to civilization. But that’s before the bad men show up looking for their buried loot. And, you know, murder her dad. (No spoilers–this is all revealed relatively quickly in the first few chapters!) Now all Jess had to do is stay alive long enough to plot her revenge when the men return. But it won’t be easy. Her bum leg makes getting around nearly impossible, she knows next to nothing about living wild, and before they left, the bad men burned her dad’s cabin, along with all his food and supplies, to the ground. Armed with just a few tools she rescued from the ashes and her father’s trusty dog Bo, does Jess have any chance of surviving the brutal Canadian winter? Like a bloodier, more emotionally wrenching version of Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet or Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins, I Am Still Alive marries unrelenting suspense with surprisingly compelling tips on ice-fishing and bad-man-trap setting. I was completely hooked, and you will be too when Alive comes to a library, bookstore or e-reader near you July 2018.

Jules, a smart and savvy senior at the exclusive and expensive Fullbrook boarding school, has had it up to here with the rampant sexism that is allowed to flourish on campus. This year, she’s on a mission. She’s going to make “Fullbrook Academy women-first for once,” and forget all about last year. Last year when Ethan Hackett cheated on her. Bax, a bewildered, Midwestern transfer student who just wants to play hockey, is really disturbed by the macho bro-culture at Fullbrook. But he hopes if he just keeps his head down and his eyes shut, he can make it through the season and forget all about last year. Last year when he ruined someone’s life forever. Jules and Bax both need a friend and ally, and they find one in each other. After a raucous, drunken secret party in the woods near the school where Jules and Bax each separately come face to face with sexual assault, they decide that enough is enough. It’s time to confront and dismiss the traditions that Fullbrook has held dear for far too long. Traditions that hurt. Traditions that scar. Together with Jule’s best friend Javi and Bax’s crush Aileen, they plot a way to send everyone at school a message they can’t ignore. What they didn’t count on was not being believed. Not being heard. Tradition may be strong. But they are stronger…

This searing, imperative tale of speaking truth to power by Brendan Kiely, co-author of All American Boys conscientiously tackles issues of classism, homophobia, racism and sexism in a way that feels immediate, raw and sadly all too true. Tradition will challenge all readers to think more deeply about the circumstances and situations they accept as “normal,” and question the sanctioned status quo. A significant #timesup title for our turbulent age.